


the darkening of a heavenly body

by CourierNinetyTwo



Series: and pride, insurmountable [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:04:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16420289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo
Summary: The first time Blue and Yellow fuse is on a moon with no name.





	the darkening of a heavenly body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QuickYoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickYoke/gifts).



> Commissioned by quickyoke as part of their 'and pride, insurmountable' series!

The moon crushed three platoons of soldiers before Yellow Diamond called a halt to the expansion.

It was a curious aspect of the environment, where intense gravity and spiraling irradiated clouds made quick work of any gems who walked the surface. Normally such radiation would be irrelevant, but the clouds themselves were suffuse with nano-diamonds, endless pyramid-shaped crystals that tore into every lesser thing they touched. After some consideration, Yellow assigned the rest of her forces to the planet below, reinforcing Blue Diamond as their combined will whittled verdant planes and roiling seas into the hardened seed of a new Kindergarten.

Then she went to see Blue herself.

With their ships hanging in the same orbit, it was simple enough to close the gap and avoid a chattering retinue that would bow and scrape behind her every step. Their deference may have been expected--obligatory--but Yellow had little patience for it today, not when she was intent on molding this moon into submission just like the rest of them. On a star chart, it wasn't even relevant enough to have a name, but a defeat anywhere weakened their strength as a whole, and she wouldn't allow some mindless _clouds_ to interfere with a proper arrangement of moonbases.

Yellow stepped through curved cobalt halls into a room of cerulean veils, barricades of fabric that offered their mistress privacy, while still bending at a touch. She walked their labyrinth without hesitation until finding Blue in the very center, poring over a projection of the planet they were transforming by degrees. Light blue eyes flickered up at her approach, acknowledging the interruption with a faint smile.

"How did the third platoon fare?" Blue asked, but it was a knowing sort of question, giving Yellow room to complain if she wished.

"Like the others, of course," Yellow muttered, every word bright with disdain. "But I have a solution."

Her fellow Diamond's gaze lingered, casting expectation into the air. There was a depth in Blue's eyes that defied definition, each one holding an endless well of emotion she could draw from at any time, spilling joy or sorrow across the stars. Yellow always felt on edge when she thought about it too long; what use did that _feeling_ have to begin with?

Yet Blue was the gem she knew best, for certain bonds could only flourish between equals, and White Diamond was the reason the universe invented the word 'authority'. Yellow claimed that word too, but never over Blue.

"Gathering your thoughts, general?" The soft, flat interruption snapped Yellow back into the present moment.

"No. It's very simple, actually." She only had to say it, with no more distractions or interruptions. "You and I can establish the moonbase together."

\--

The announcement caused some chaos in the lower ranks. While a certain imperial distance always lingered between a Diamond and her subjects, no ruler was ever truly alone. Pearls leaped to attention with Yellow's first frustrated breath, and every Jasper under Blue's command fought for the right to guard her most private doors. Each gem was a working cog in the system that let Diamonds command without hesitation or distraction, and to cast that system aside--even for a matter of hours--carried in waves of both fear and concern.

Yellow did not like giving orders twice. Every commander in the room trembled when she dismissed them, leaving behind a solitary Peridot holding an unwieldy device, its bulk taller than she was.

With one broad hand, Yellow gestured towards the gem's wavering burden. "This will provide the foundation for the base, yes?"

"Yes, my Diamond!" The Peridot was was clearly the sort that liked to talk with her hands, but if those strained fingers moved, she would have dropped the device. There was little question it was worth more than she was. "And as soon as it can draw power and project a safe environment around it, the Warp Pad will come online, and the rest of your forces can-!"

Yellow's fingers pressed together, hard and sharp as a blade, commanding silence. "Leave it."

The Peridot obeyed with a startled murmur, placing the piece of machinery at Yellow's feet like an offering. She didn't even wait to be dismissed, scurrying out of the room like something was chasing her. Yellow huffed in annoyance, but truly, her thoughts were already elsewhere.

Blue had agreed with her plan, and now it was only a matter of claiming this little victory so they could move on.

\--

Yellow landed on the moon's surface hard enough to send cracks splitting through stone for a mile in every direction. Gravity attempted to pull at her every step, but she was implacable, even against such a cosmic force.

With the moonbase's foundation cradled under one arm, she walked towards the solitary figure standing at the curve of a crater. Blue's cloak was rippling in two directions at once, caught between dueling zephyrs, a sheen of frozen hydrogen glowing bright around the haze of nano-diamonds.

As Yellow approached, the shear of the wind yanked Blue's hood down around her shoulders, exposing the other Diamond's face. She _glittered_ like every inch of her had been polished, shining bright with every whirlwind that kissed her cheek. For a moment, Blue seemed to be the disk of a newborn star, surrounding by a rush of dancing particles, calling for life, calling to thrive and grow.

Calling to be touched.

That last thought caught Yellow off-guard, but not so much as the astonished look Blue gave her when their eyes met. "You're nearly glowing, Yellow."

She looked down at her own body, and it was true. The device she held was now a dull, lusterless thing in comparison, crude machinery cradled by a triumph of the galaxy, both strong and beautiful.

"To think this is what turned so many of my warriors to dust," Yellow groused, and a pathetic beep from the moonbase's radiation shield warned that it would soon suffer the same fate, were its core not buried in the earth. "Some pretty trifle."

"I think it's more than a trifle," Blue commented quietly, but even when Yellow waited, she didn't elaborate.

They walked to the bottom of the crater together, shielded from most of the wind by the natural curve of its walls. With a sweep of her hand, Blue used a swathe of energy to flatten the ground, wearing away countless years of untouched earth into a smooth, perfect plane. Yellow placed the core in its very center, then pressed the panel on the top so the device could begin doing its work.

It hummed and whirred, content as any other drone to start drilling downward. When only the very top was visible, flush with the ground, the core settled and began to flicker, stripping every resource out of the terrain around it to fuel its growth. The Warp Pad would weave its way out, crystalline growth to be cut into its proper shape, facets and all.

But that would be a while yet, and even a Diamond's will only had so much influence on the passage of time.

There was no point in watching the little thing spin, so Yellow retreated to the top of the crater. Blue followed after, only to sit after her ascent. There were no thrones or couches here, only the way Blue's cloak folded under her legs to provide some barrier between light-kissed limbs and unworked earth.

After a moment, Yellow sat down too, if only because standing above Blue made her feel like she was posturing. From their position on the moon, they could look at the planet below, a dark ocean stretching across its entire face. Yet there were changes and divides in the tides, where gem influence was manipulating the very rhythm of the world into a source of power, into a new colony that would stretch the reach of the Diamond Authority one orbit farther.

Yellow hadn't been this alone with Blue since they were first named said Authority, side by side as White smiled down on them. She had been too young to realize what it meant then, how duty and drive would carve her into a shape that could cut through galaxies.

"Do you ever wonder," Blue interrupted herself with a smile, as if 'wonder' itself was a jest, "what goes beyond all this?"

"Another planet, more moons." Their composition was irrelevant to Yellow; they would be analyzed by Peridots, guarded by Rubies, named with some efficient title that would be fed into navigational data for wandering Sapphires. "We'll conquer until we find the end of space, if there is one."

"But what goes beyond the conquering?" Blue's brow furrowed, her eyes still locked on the distant planet. "Once we have everything."

Yellow frowned. "Propagating more Gems? I'm not sure what you're asking."

"That, of course, I..." A sigh left Blue's lips; the sound was desolate. "Some part of me is curious if there is more can be more than a Diamond. Something greater than us."

"Nothing is greater than us," Yellow answered immediately.

That was their nature, to be above and beyond; it was why they ruled and others bowed, why every sentient species that ever thought to challenge that was ground to pieces and struck from memory. What could Blue see beyond that? What could be more powerful?

"Nothing yet," Blue replied, moments after a span of silence had fallen between them. "We strive and conquer, paint the galaxy in our colors, but if we've already reached that peak, that terminus..."

Frustration worked its way through Yellow's mind like sand and salt, rubbing against each other to become something new. "The only thing more powerful than one Diamond is two. Or three, I suppose."

Two seemed like the better number in this case, although she wasn't sure why.

They were here already, a pair sitting side by side. How much closer could they be unless their gems were aligned, facet fit to facet? Yellow looked down at her hand, and wondered if touching Blue would slide into her, or make them both brighter.

Could they break each other if they tried? Would it feel like anything at all?

Yellow's throat was a stripmine, dry and barren. Her eyes tapered up Blue's fingers, counting their joints and how they melded with her palm, azure and flawless. Their conversation circled through her thoughts again, and a pair of insistent statements fought for supremacy.

The first was her earlier reflex; it said that Diamonds were perfect as they were made and could attain no greater shape, but did that also mean they lacked an ability their inferiors possessed by nature? Thus the second took form, promising that a fusion between Diamonds would be greater than anything else the universe could ever imagine.

There were enough of them for it to be possible, but only just.

Her eyes were locked so intently on Blue's hand that she did not notice the other moving until it came to rest on her knee. The pressure was a shock, if not an unpleasant one, but the implications unraveled all at once. By obligation, they were hyper-aware of the space their sizeable bodies took up--that they _commanded_ \--and no contact was by accident.

She could have said something--a dozen rebukes came to mind, each harsher than the next--but instead Yellow placed her fingers on top of Blue's. Then she squeezed them, expecting the same fragile give of other gems, but every digit in her grasp was smooth and strong, unyielding.

"Yellow," Blue murmured, half into the fallen hood of her cloak.

The whisper of her name was call and plea all at once, but Yellow had no easy way to answer save being direct. "Yes?"

"What were you looking at so intently?" She turned with the question, ensuring their eyes met without helmet or cloak to divide them.

Blue had to know the truth--it was obvious--yet for some reason wanted it voiced aloud, made salient in the air. They touched still, fingers tightly interlocked. "You, of course. How could I not be fascinated by you?"

Perhaps this was inevitable.

She leaned forward, but Blue did as well, and their brows met with a soft bump of contact. The pressure should have been the same, in technical terms, but Yellow felt so much different in this position, privy to every flickering expression across Blue's face, the resounding depths of her eyes.

It was as if a veil separating them for centuries, unknown and untouched, had suddenly been drawn back.

"Do we keep going?" Yellow asked, softer than she had ever spoken before.

A small smile chased its way across Blue's lips. "How do we keep going?"

For some reason, it comforted Yellow to know they were mutually ignorant. She preferred the superior position, of course, but that was with others--not with Blue. Here neither one of them had to know the right answer, and any scratches the wrong answers left could be burnished away with time.

She needed her tactical mind for a moment. The Warp Pad was still building itself, and even when complete, it would not connect to the network until they bid it so. Every ship in her fleet was either on the ground or faced the planet below, paying no attention to this distant moon, and they were the tip of the conquering spear; no scouts would be returning from the front to relay messages here, seeking a Diamond's audience.

They were alone. No one was watching, or could be.

Yellow drew her fingertips along where Blue's hand divided into five slender digits, then further up the line of her arm. The touch displaced her dark sleeve, baring what was underneath. It should have been a small, meaningless intimacy--of course she had seen Blue's body free of her robes before, and this single surface was only one of many--except this was the first time Yellow had ever been responsible for such exposure.

"Like this, I think," Yellow whispered, her hand capturing Blue's wrist as she tilted her head to meet the curious line of the other Diamond's mouth.

There was _heat_ , twin points of heat, one a pulse between where their lips joined, and the other trapped in the circle of her grip. So much of being a Diamond required a cold emptiness, just like the space around them, and Yellow had never imagined how warm Blue would be when she was kissed--as they figured out how to kiss each other.

It was fumbling, a tumbling back and forth, but Blue leaned into every exchange, so Yellow knew she had to be doing something right. When they finally broke away, it was to look in awe at one another. What else could she feel when Blue was framed by the distant planet's glow, when the glistening air fell across them both like a shroud?

"More," Blue sounded hoarse, as if the kiss had stolen her voice as tribute, "I don't want to stop."

"Neither do I." Only here could Yellow admit the truth, when its singular judge sat here beside her. "We don't have to stop."

She meant it as permission as much as promise, and Yellow renewed the kiss as her hold slackened on Blue's wrist. There were too many places left unexplored to be content with that single anchor, and Yellow shifted until her body was pressed between Blue's knees. Her presence pushed up the length of Blue's robes, and it was with a building hunger that Yellow traced over the matched sets of calf and knee.

With a careful twist of her head, Blue's hair spilled back over both shoulders like a flood of starlight. It gave Yellow access to the sharp line of Blue's jaw, the softer majesty of her throat, and she dared to graze her teeth there. Blue gasped in answer, one hand clutching at Yellow's shoulder as the other sought out the nape of her neck, finding where rigid crystal met skin.

"You need this off." Amusement filtered through Blue's voice as she pulled away Yellow's helmet, setting it aside with the respect due a relic. "Unless you planned to run me through."

"Not in that sense," Yellow muttered, almost embarrassed. Such a feeling was rare, almost wholly unfamiliar, yet did not sting anywhere near as much as it had on previous occasions.

She wanted Blue's robes gone, or at least out of the way. Her hands caught on the other Diamond's hips, waves of fabric bunched up between them until Blue rose just enough for the dark sheath to slip past her body and over her head. Yellow held the robes like a treasure in her hands, but the heat of Blue's body faded from them fast, and the true bounty sat right in front of her.

It was ridiculous, in a way. Blue could have dismissed her clothes with a thought, yet there would have been something lost if she did. Yellow had wanted the privilege, she realized, and satisfaction spun hot inside her that Blue offered such without a word. She let the robes fall from her grasp and pressed forward until the outside of her thighs were framed by the inside of Blue's, tight and close.

Another kiss was sought, but Yellow wasn't sure where to put her hands. She started at Blue's shoulders, drawing her palms across each smooth slope. Her fingers returned with an exploratory touch across azure collarbones, right above the line of Blue's gem. When she dared to touch there, a feather-light caress across hard facets, Blue shuddered, a tremble from head to toe.

"How does that feel?" Yellow asked, keen to continue.

"Good," Blue whispered back, her fingers stroking up the back of Yellow's neck and into the line of her hair. "Very good."

She took that encouragement and dared lower, placing a kiss at the base of Blue's throat before her hands spread across the curve of breast and rib, following the other Diamond's shape. It was both like and unlike her own, sharing make but not model. Yellow wasn't even sure how it would feel to have this touch in return, but she knew from Blue's gentle chorus of gasps and moans that more would be welcome.

How had they spent so long apart? There was a comfort in pressing so close, a deep and irresistible temptation. Yellow chased the shine trapped along her fingers and Blue's stomach down between her thighs, finding an even greater heat, the brilliant sheen of desire. She broke their shared gaze to watch it glisten, losing herself to the sight in wonder until Blue's fingers tightened against the column of her neck.

"Yellow, please." Golden eyes flickered upward, meeting the longing written all over Blue's face. "Keep going."

Yellow bit her tongue. This was new, uncharted territory, but she was _needed_ and for now that was enough. Her fingers delved forward, seeking, as she watched for a reaction. Blue's shaky moan was like a musical note, landing low and true, and Yellow let out a gasp herself when Blue clutched her close. Their mouths met in another kiss, less structured, less calculated, and Yellow's hand continued to move, finding an even rhythm.

The rhythm was met by the rocking of Blue's hips, hunting for friction, and when Yellow's palm pressed against the sensitive swell between Blue's thighs, the reaction sent cerulean nails scratching down her back. She repeated the motion, cupping the other Diamond's clit between heat and constant pressure as her fingers moved in swift thrusts, finding confidence with every sound that escaped Blue's throat.

"I, Yellow..." Words shattered on Blue's tongue before taking shape, syllables cleaved through by staggered sounds of need.

Yellow's other arm came around Blue's back, cradling her as close as they could be--it seemed like the thing to do. Yet she wasn't sure if it was that or the next curl of her fingers that sent Blue into the cascade of release, heat clenching tight around her all the way to the knuckles. Every pulse of bliss felt hotter than the next, and the muscles in Blue's thighs trembled and slackened with each wave until she was spent.

In the tangle of their bodies, Blue felt soft, as if the boundaries of her form had lost their edge. Something close to fear seized Yellow's chest, wondering if that would happen to her, if this was a cost too heavy for either of them to bear.

Then Blue smiled, eyes more vibrant than anything else the universe had ever forged, and that tension was cast away like detritus into space.

"Can I take off your armor?" Blue asked, but Yellow heard the question behind the question: _can I see you?_

She nodded, and clever fingers found clasps and seals with so little hesitation that Yellow couldn't help but think this wasn't the first time Blue had considered stripping her bare. A ghost of a smile rose to her lips, small but genuine, before the sensation of Blue's hands on the bare surface of her thighs was too much of a distraction to ignore.

"I've always been curious about how different we were, truly." A flutter of fingertips passed over Yellow's hips, then memorized the hard plane of her stomach while drifting higher. "There's hues and angles and light, but it's comforted me from the beginning that our gem sat in the same place."

A haze of pleasure spilled across Yellow's mind with each caress, but a spike of tenderness made her shiver when Blue touched her gem, briefly concealed in the cradle of her palm. "Does it matter if we're different?"

"In some ways." Blue laughed, and it was such a gentle and unexpected sound that Yellow's eyes widened a touch. "I'm not sure what I'd think if you were exactly like me."

It wouldn't have worked, Yellow thought. Over their shared eternity, she had clashed with Blue on matters of policy and philosophy, but the Authority was strong because they could always see the flaws in each other's views. Together they sealed away weakness, presenting a united front to the rest of the empire.

Her mind unanchored from that thought entirely when Blue's hands descended again, teasing around where she ached. Yellow wasn't inherently opposed to such exploration, but she wanted more, and asked for it with a kiss deep enough to make them both moan, the sound muffled against each other's lips.

"Impatient." Blue's comment would have been chiding, were it not for the path her fingers took, coming back slick. "Or direct, I should say."

Yellow's reflexive denial vanished from her throat when Blue started to rub at her clit in slow circles, sending a hot rush of bliss spiraling through the rest of her body. She grabbed at Blue's shoulders so tight she briefly thought they might shatter, but no, they wouldn't break each other in such a way.

She let her body move as it willed, finding what angle felt right against Blue's insistent touch, and which others were an exercise in heated frustration. Yellow felt like she was being molded to the heavenly pressure of Blue's fingers, taking more and more until the tension weaving inside her from head to toe was almost unbearable in its intensity. It was new and vulnerable--a word she had always detested--but Yellow found herself unable to summon any anger when the rest of her mind was consumed with the heights Blue was carrying her to.

Release left Yellow gasping, knees weak as her hips moved of their own accord, trying to chase the spiral of euphoria as long as it would go. Blue's fingers slowed, but it was a careful descent, tracing the line where sensitivity warred with ecstasy. That they now possessed such intimate knowledge of each other left Yellow reeling in a whole new way, but the rest of her was too content to bring the words to light.

"Do you ever wonder," Yellow began, wary of the question as much as the answer, "if we could be more than this?"

Her entire body, an incessant bastion of strength, felt _malleable_. It would be so easy to slip her shape, to delve inside Blue's and find all of the other places that they locked together. A bright glow started to spread across her limbs, seeking a partner, seeking those answers.

"Yes," Blue said, and that same glow answered from beneath her skin, dancing between silver and white.

They fit like they were always meant to, gems flush side by side, and the thrill of fusion washed over them both, coming together in something beautiful and new.

In the instant before she was more--complete--Yellow imagined what they must have looked like to anyone on that distant planet, if anyone would dare to look at such pure majesty.

She hoped not. She wanted Blue to be hers, and hers alone.

\--


End file.
